My Red Mask of Courage, I need you now

I know I'm not alone. 2017 was a total freaking nightmare for so many of us.

Red Mask of Courage, 2018.

I spent so much of the year angry at every single living person in the entire United States. If you breathed air in this country, I was angry at you. Yeah, you.

Angry at the Trump voters, obviously, both his base and the spineless Republicans who held their nose while they voted him. And I was angry at all of the nice, startled white people who acted like the world was any more unjust than it had been the day before Trump was elected. Angry at those nice folks for not understanding that racism, injustice and intolerance really was as awful as people of color have been saying all along.

I was angry at people who didn't get off their asses to protest. I was angry at people who said the scales had fallen from their eyes. I was angry at those women who sunk back into their cocoon of white privilege when they refused to listen to women of color and trans women who told them that the pussy hat felt like an exclusionary, alienating symbol. I was angry at anyone who even hinted the Colin Kaepernick was anything but a patriot. I was angry at anyone who ever once left a comment on any article, anywhere.

I was angry at anyone who recommended a book by another straight, white male author or any gallery that launched another exhibition by another straight, white male artist.  This was especially infuriating when said male was a baby boomer.

I was angry at stupid movies. At people who were amused by stupid movies. At photos of people's food (especially meat photos). At people who didn't just post endless photos of their cute, smiling kids, but those who posted endless "memories" of photos of their cute, smiling kids.

I was angry at the Durham County district attorney for picking me to serve on a murder trial and then showed us the victim's autopsy photos while his mother was in the courtroom. I was angry at the heavily armed bailiffs who fell asleep, gripping their guns, during the trial. I was angry at the landlord who gave me 45 days to move out. I was angry at my father's kidneys for continuing to fail, despite the drugs and procedure, despite the massive physical strength of the man. 

I was angry at other artists who managed to create. I was angry at groups of people I witnessed laughing in public.

I was angry at people who said, "I still can't believe this is happening," while shaking their heads.

I could go on, but you get where I'm going.

Obviously, I'm exaggerating to make you laugh a little. My anger was nutso. I gained 15 anger pounds. It still is nutso. I have to get a grip. Maybe I will get a grip this year. Yeah, that is my goal. A grip.

Backside, Red Mask of Courage.

Until then I'm going to try to get back to making. Which brings me to this Red Mask of Courage. It's my biggest piece so far. 10.5 x 11.5 inches. Took me a couple hundred hours. I look brave in this mask, right? I'm going to channel some of that braveness now and try to push forward in 2018.

This piece is part of Ellen Schinderman's Stitch Fetish 6, opening in LA on Feb 2, 2018.

Stay posted for more blog posts. I think. Some about my art. Maybe more about my anger. (Oh, goodie!) Be a pal.

Physiognomy and its discontents

I'm deluded for seeking any answers from the study of my aging face.

Rough, predawn sketch.

From sketching it. From stitching it. 

WIP, 2017.

And yet I'm compelled. Willing to risk being dismissed as a narcissist. 

Old makeup. Morning sketch.

There are no answers there and yet I'm lost in this map.

Citizen O

I'm back home from adventures in London and Amsterdam. To say that I had an amazing time is an understatement.

My love for my friends Betsy and Jamie has only grown from spending time with them at the Stitching Show.

I am a citizen of this beauty.

Being away from my life for a few weeks made me muse upon the lands I want to be a citizen of and the lands I do not.

I will apply for citizenship to any world where the vibrant and unreserved artist Jess de Wahls lives. (Self portrait.)

I am a citizen of the world. Not only the USA. To humanity. To life.

With Jamie Chalmers and Betsy Greer, two citizens of my love.

I am a citizen of my community. My neighborhood. I am an unapologetic citizen of love. A citizen of my family, my heart, my soul, of passion, of nature, of art, of my imperfect body. I am a citizen of my city, of thoughts and ideas. A citizen of language. Of forgiveness. A citizen of the Resistance. I am a proud citizen of the world of artists and makers and writers. 

#yasvb, in Dutch.

But I don't want to be a citizen of online reality. Of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. Of self-hype. Self-doubt. Of my income bracket, I don't want to be a citizen of the mall, or gratuitous apology, or self-created, online personas. I don't want to be a citizen of the country users, or the self-deluded, the self-aggrandizing. Of regrets. Of false positivity. I don't want to be a citizen of your world if you believe in your own advertising pitch for yourself. 

Selfie with Banksy, my fellow citizen.

I revoke my citizenship for any land that would have comfortable cowards as heroes. So my world is both small and huge.

LA Fever

Andy and I took a crazy weekend trip to LA for the Stitch Fetish 5 opening night. Weirdly enough, we both had insane fevers and the flu... suffering from what I call the Super Bug.

Opening night at the Hive Gallery, Los Angeles.

So, my experience of the show is tempered by what is, for me, a rare burst of sickness. What I remember is walking through the gallery, talking with artists that I deeply admire, including Aubrey Longley-Cook and Rebecca Levi. I saw curator Ellen Schinderman, of that I'm sure. I don't have a specific memory of it, however.

Reposted from Rebecca Levi my work (top left) along with Kathryn Shinko, Michelle Kingdom and Abbey Aichinger. Illustrious company!!

What I do remember is Andy (and my) insanely cool friends, Frank and Jody, putting up with violently ill guests. I remember having an amazing LA dinner with them at a high rise downtown. I remember sharing secrets of our lives.

An artist gathering from the show, in front of the Hollywood sign. Becca Hammond-Cahill, Alexander Cain, Matthew Monthei, Annette Huelly, Michelle Kingdom, Rebecca Levi, Me.

But one of my favorite memories was of a artists' gathering that Matthew Monthei arranged on Saturday, before the show. I got to meet up with several artists I have known for a while and a few new ones.

Michelle Kindgom told Rebecca Levi, Annette Huelly and me a little about her artistic process. I was particularly inspired by her explanation about how she uses sketches on tissue paper. There is something so transitory about tissue paper sketches.

My random, muddy sketch on tissue paper of two 19th Century Polish boys smoking and hanging with their ram. 

Michelle says she collects the sketches on paper. And then later, as she designs her beautiful artwork, layers and cuts pieces from various sketches to design the deeply psychological, mysterious and dreamlike art she produces.

For me, sketching and drawing are wildly playful, freeing. What a wonderful lesson to get from this amazing artist. I'm so excited about the process and the possibilities.

Finally, I interviewed (for Mr X Stitch) a group of artists in the show about their imagery, process and their thoughts about the value of showing in galleries at all. I'm proud of this conversation. Because for me, making art is something you do alone. For no one else. No one cares if you do it or not.

But all of these generous artists also feel compelled. In the face of yawns, they keep pushing themselves. 

And that's my story. You're yawning, but I'm still going, still making. Even with a fever.

Sharing my Art

So much of my art and writing exists on the web. And I value the connections I make with other artists and I'm inspired by the images of creativity and beauty I find on their Instagram streams and blogs. To say that I would be lost without the online community of textile artists and their work is not an understatement. 

Various pieces of my artwork framed, on my dining table.

There is also something wonderful about sharing your work in person. About going into a gallery and seeing, without the prism of a screen, the glorious alchemy of thread and fabric, paint and stitch. 

South African artist Hannalie Taute with a postcard I sent of Beneath/Within. Sending prints of your work is a great way to share it!

The best is the thrill and joy of meeting the artists you know online, who you've shown with or written articles about, or just admired, in person. Of talking to them about their work and their process. Of being able to connect with another soul who shares this crazy passion for thread and images...

I've been lucky to have many experiences like this. And none of it would have been possible without the web.

I made large scale prints of the back of some of my pieces, based on comments made about my work online.

For example, I met Iviva Olenick back in 2013 in Brooklyn. I'd been following her on Twitter and read about a event she created that combined a poetry reading and embroidery. I was so intrigued. My good friend Kevin Kinsella, a poet in Brooklyn, read at the event on a beautiful June night. And I met the huge artistic soul that is Iviva in person.

In front of Beneath/Within at the Carrack Modern Art, Durham. (Photo by Andy Bechtel)

Another Brooklyn artist, Rebecca Levi, I first met in LA, at an artist brunch for Ellen Schinderman's Stitch Fetish 4. A few months later I was lucky enough to meet her for dinner in New York and get a tour of her inspiring home studio. What a joy that was!

First time I met craftivist and writer Betsy Greer (who I'm traveling to London with in March) was when she happened to be in Raleigh, curating a show called the Threads of War, which included a project by Danish artist Hanne Bang that I'd contributed to. Betsy and I walked through the pieces on display, geeking out over the stitches. Great experience.

Work showing in 2017.

Those are just a few of many great experiences like that!

All of this to say, it's good to step away from the screen. To put down your fabric and thread. To walk through a gallery. To go to a poetry reading. To meet other makers and artists who share (or not) your hard-to-explain drive to translate the experience of being alive into thread or fabric or paint or words or photos or music. 

Get out there. I keep telling myself. Get up and get out there.

Flora from Fauna (NSFW)

So much has happened in the world since my last post. I stopped making art for a few weeks after the horrific US election. 

Detail, Flora from Fauna, 2016.

I started back up, working on this piece for Stitch Fetish 5 in Los Angeles.  But writing about my art making still feels weird. So, for now, I will just post pictures.

Right hip.

Flora from Fauna, 2016. Hand embroidery on linen. 8x8 inches.

At work.

I hope to find my way back to writing again.

Longing. A self portrait in process.

Beneath/Within, 2016

My dream of tubes and wires beneath my scalp has become this piece.

Beneath/Within, 2016. Hand embroidery on linen. 10 x 10 inches.

There are holes like crevasses. And bones like girding. And neurons like webs under my skin.

Backside.

I'm not done.

Detail from lips in process.

My next self portrait is a blurry image. I'm currently designing it.

Process.

"Studio day" in my living room.

It is me in the digital ethers.

Scenes from the Weird Self-Portrait, in process

Weird self-portrait is my tongue-in-cheek, working title for this latest piece.

The idea came to me after I dreamt about finding wires coming out of the back of my head.

Andy says it looks sort of "medical." I hadn't thought of that word, but I agree.

Design woes from Olisa Corcoran on Vimeo.

I had trouble getting this design. But I finally got a basic shape I could use as my ground image for stitching.

Back to it.

Cuidado! We are not alone

If I lament about the loneliness of being a textile and embroidery artist, tell me to shut up.

Cuidado! by Mark Bieraugel.

Tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself and to lay my eyes on "Cuidado!" the startling and beautiful artwork I received as a gift from the amazing California artist Mark Bieraugel. 

"Cuidado!" is meditation on danger. On the risks we take crossing borders, literally and figuratively. It is stark, timely and unnerving. A running family in the crosshairs, depicted in soft felt and thread. Strange in the best sense. And although it is different in subject from the science, sex and humor of Mark's other work, it is entirely him. 

Page 39. Stitch A Pose, 2013, by Mark Bieraugel.

I am humbled. I am awed. Mark's heart is huge. His generosity is astounding. And his art is magical. His mixed media creations fuse the playful with the profound. 

Please see my interview with Mark for Inspired to Stitch for Mr X Stitch and follow his Stitch A Pose art project on Instagram. You will be as taken with his vision as I am.

Page 745. 2014.

Sure, it can be isolating to spend so much time alone, with my needles, embroidery floss and sketchbook. Mark's beautiful gift reminds me that we're not alone. That threads connect us to other makers out there, who are bent over their fabric, making sense (or not) of their world in a flush of creativity and vision. 

A community of thread.

Thank you, dear Mark. 

Hunger. Complicated and Personal

This piece brings me joy and disturbs me. It is deeply personal. It is my hunger. My very confusing hunger.

Hunger, 2016. Hand embroidery on linen. Stretched on 6 x 6 inch canvas.

First, the confusing and difficult part.

Although the image of my lips here is unintentionally sexualized, I don’t mean hungry in a sexual sense. Literally hungry. For food.

I imagine that for most financially comfortable people, hunger is not confusing. You feel hungry, you eat.

(I fully recognize the privilege embedded in this statement; billions of people do not have the means to nourish themselves. Even in my own neighborhood.)

Process shots. From sketch to layers of thread.

I’m not like most people when it comes to hunger and food. And for the last ten years I’ve been hungry. At times, desperately so.

I’ve been fighting myself, my body, to keep myself within the “healthy” BMI range for my height. If I’m honest, what I really mean is I’ve been fighting to keep myself at a weight that allows me to pass for “normal.” I’m ruthless about it and so I succeed. 

However, my body wants to be (and has been) fat. Very fat. Obese. And I’ve summoned surgeons and trainers and charlatans to help me fight against it for ten years. Although I haven’t looked obese in ten years, but I still struggle with obesity. 

The gaps in my teeth. I love them.

If you have never dealt with obesity, I know this makes no sense. But for me to weigh between 125-135 pounds, I have to be very hungry a lot of the time.  

You may not know this about obese people living their lives at a "healthy" weight. We are constantly fighting against our bodies like contortionists. It's not a matter of willpower. It's 10,000 battles against our disordered biology, within the toxic social pressures around women's weight.

This is not the great tragedy of my life. It is just exhausting. 

(Recently I’ve been reading and thinking about the fat acceptance movement.  It is a complex and diverse school of thought and I’m still working through my feelings about it, but anything that addresses the stigma of living in the world as an obese person is exciting to me.) 

Home studio time.

Second, the exciting part.

Hunger for life and experience and growth – these hungers are huge wells of strength in my life. This hunger drives me. This hungry mouth piece, along with two other recent ones, is leap with the skills and technique component of my artwork.

I have been pushing myself with translating faces and features to thread. 

Thread Self Portrait 1. My mind cracked open with this piece.

Since attending Lauren DiCioccio’s painting with thread workshop at Arrowmont Art School in May, I’ve been focusing on my technique. I’m learning so much about color and value.  To combine my personal preference for certain colors with a more disciplined approach to using hue to capture my own vision of a face. A feature.

Detail from Hunger, 2016.

So this hungry mouth is deeply satisfying to me. And that brings me joy. Even in the midst of my confusion.

Self Portrait Frenzy. No apologies.

Yes, I know that an artist who focuses on self portraiture can be mistaken for an unsavory narcissist. But I don't care. 

Thread Self Portrait, 2. 2016. Hand embroidery on linen.

Why not my face as my subject? Why not my body?

Process shots. From sketch to stitching.

Why not take one aging, half-breed, childless, Latina divorcee and say, this is my subject? This is worth interpreting? These moods and lines are worth your gaze and the artist's time?

Scars, wrinkles, sags and all. I won't apologize or explain away a single one of these. And I have some gnarly scars, some gnarly sags.

Early purple stitching.

Part of it is lack of energy on my part. There are so many people out there.  And so many things that they're protecting themselves against. In our highly curated world, our own image is worth a battle. And I don't feel the energy to go out there and ask for your images. To battle.

Because, here I am, at my own beck and call, ready to pose, expose and do whatever I tell myself to do. However weird. So why not use this particular model?

Show your giant scars around your entire torso. Done.

Bifurcated, 2016. Hand embroidery on linen.

There are are millions of faces and hips and lips out there to capture in stitch. But maybe aging, sagging, unapologetic half-breed women have been ignored. Especially if she is the artist.

Right now, this is my focus. If that makes me unsavory, so it goes. I'm unsavory. And I can live with that. (I promise that I'll never be mean, petty or dishonest.)

Rinsed, pressed and matted.

Here is my subject. Me. Without apologies. 

Studio time & a new self portrait

My five week sabbatical from the corporate salt mines has been a fantastic creative time for me.

Thread Self Portrait, 2016. Hand embroidery on linen.

Especially the weeklong retreat I took at Arrowmont School of Art and Craft in the Smoky Mountains where I studied under an artist whose work I've admired for so long -- Lauren DiCioccio!

Studio critique time, Arrowmont.

The warm, inspiring and hugely talented Lauren taught a "Painting With Thread" embroidery portraiture workshop. To say I learned a lot is an understatement.

Process shots of my self portrait.

I spent nine or more hours a day in the studio, really pushing myself to see faces, color and thread in a new way.

Thread Self Portrait, 2016, from the backside.

I'm a self-taught artist, so this was exciting and exhausting. Especially thinking about color. I have always gorged myself on color... now I want hone my understanding of it in a more cohesive way. 

First version. I struggled mightily and went through three different versions of the portrait.

Since coming home I've let myself turn my tiny apartment into a home studio.

Detail from Thread Self Portrait in process.

This means that I'm letting myself spread out and make a mess and not worrying about keeping it neat for guests.

Study for my lips.

I'm following my days where they take me.

Studio day, chez moi.

This glorious, creative time started with Lauren and my studio mates a Arrowmont.

The studio group. Lauren is on the bottom row, the second from the right.

What a June!

Stop. Adventure Time.

Storm clouds rolled away and I'm in a very happy place. Why? Personal stuff. Artistic stuff. 

Red Mask of Courage, 5/24/16.

I complain a lot about my corporate day job, but hell, it allows me to support myself, feed myself, put a roof over my head. And beyond that, it offers me gracious benefits like a PAID, FOUR WEEK SABBATICAL that starts this Friday.

Thus: Adventure time.

Self portrait, version 2, step 1.

What does that mean? Headed to an amazing workshop at Arrowmont in the Smoky Mountains next week. A full week studying under the amazing artist Lauren DiCioccio. 

There, I'll turn the self-portrait above into a embroidered portrait. It's a new world for me.

My moody left eye in stitch.

Beyond that, I'm going to Montreal with my mami and a road trip with my squeeze. 

Who the hell am I to complain about anything? I'm lucky, mofos.

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Stormy times

Stormy times.

Sunny day outside.

I feel like I’ve lost my way. Like I’m not sure where I fit in to anyone’s life… into the world in general. Like I’m not sure what I need to do to be a connected, productive human. As an artist. As a friend. I haven’t felt this lost in a long time.

A mess of thread on the inside. 

I know I’ll find my way. I know I have decisions to make.  Being patient with myself and stitching away on my Red Mask of Courage. Hoping to get some courage from it. 

Morning stitching in bed.

A life raft isn't coming.

Red Mask of Courage, May edition

Finished a long strip of my newly named Red Mask of Courage. (Huge thanks to California artist Mark Bieraugel for helping me find my title!)

WIP: 5/4/16

I have no idea why stitching these pixelated images is so exciting to me, but I must confess that I love it.

Stitching in the afternoon sun.

Such a painstakingly slow process. I want to stitch up 10,000 images, if only I could live so long. It is joy in thread.

Bifurcated (Red foliage), new work

As a woman who has a bifurcated life and a bifurcated body, I'm obsessed with things that are cut in half and then rejoined.

Bifurcated (Red foliage), 2016. Hand embroidery on linen.

I also appreciate when life grows from wounds.

Detail from Bifurcated (Red foliage).

Stitches: Feather, fishbone, fly, straight stitch, back stitch and crossed fly. Pearl cotton and DMC, 2 strands. On white linen.

That's all I'm going to say about this.

A New Stitched Girl Begins

I'm 50 x 100 stitches in on a new large, altered self-portrait of my rapidly aging face.

WIP 2/28/16.

The piece doesn't have a name yet. I love building the image stitch by stitch, pixel by pixel.

Designing the piece, with threads.

Editing and pulling out stitches as I go. It's going to take a long time. And I will be more aged for the next one.

Public Health Blues... in stitch

First thing. Understand that I'm not laughing at anyone. I'm not mocking or sneering or looking down. Get that through you head.

Two napkins. The image on top goes with the image on the bottom.

These are cocktail napkins. Made for my dear friend Alex, with whom I shared I special professional experience.

There is something so beautiful about meeting a girl under the bridge.

I once worked in public health and I loved it very much. It wasn't merely public health... it was actually sort of pubic health.

For five years I worked for a large, sexual health, non-profit. We had huge CDC contracts, including the National AIDS Hotline. I started on the phones, talking to and educating anonymous callers about the states of their genitals, transmission of disease, their fears, their loneliness, their anxieties. Later, I became an HIV Test counselor, delivering results, traveled for a few months to AIDS service organizations for the CDC, and went into management. But it's the voices on the phone that still remain with me ten years later.  

That's the background of these stitches. These are just a few of the narratives I collected from those years. I have a box of over a hundred slips of paper, each with a fleeting question, anxiety, image.

WW 2 era prevention poster. The lure.

Human sexuality is, for so many, infused with pathos. On occasion, hearing that pathos provoked a kind of gallows humor for me. The questions took my breath away. They didn't shock me. They gave me energy. They startled. They made me sad. They made me giggle.

The underside of our fear.

"Mama told me that I could get herpes from wearing tight jeans to the rodeo." 

It's poetry of terrible parenting and misinformation. And it is true, but not literally. 

A larger piece of these scraps of narrative is churning in my mind. After all of these years.

California Dreaming

I'm still buzzing from my amazing experiences in Los Angeles at the Stitch Fetish 4 show opening. Hell, yeah!

In front of my Epic Lips, 2015, opening night, The Hive Gallery. (Photo by Rebecca Levi)

Sometimes it's hard to convey the bifurcated reality of my life as a working artist. I have a full time corporate job. I hustle like a mofo when I'm in my beige cubicle. It's fine. The work is dull to me but I take is seriously. It allows me to support myself. It's nothing fancy, but I'm out here alone in the world. I'm not a spring chicken and I'm terrified of being broke, which is always looming as a possibility. I don't have a net.

Gallery wall, including work by Julie Sarloutte, Pete Seazle and others.

So yes, I'm grateful for the work, but damn, it's so isolating. Lonely.

Annette, Heully, me, Michelle Kingdom and Rebecca Levi at brunch at The Waffle on Sunset Blvd.

The opposite of my time in LA with the other textile artists! 

I was blown away by The Ramble by Matthew Monthei.

The gallery wall of my dreams! My work along side Erika Hagberg's kisses and Meghan Willis' fruit.

The Stitch Fetish curator,the indomnible LA-based artist, Ellen Schinderman, collected erotic stitched art from around the world and several artists themselves from around the country to opening at the Hive Gallery. And I got to be one of them!

Curator/artist Ellen Schinderman in front of her work at the opening.

What a joy it was! What wonderful conversations I had with my fellow thread artists... about process, creativity, craft, ideas. In person!

Brunch fun times, with Emma Rose Laughlin, Rebecca Levi and Matthew Monthei.

I talked stitching into photographic paper with Matthew Monthei. Transfer techniques with Rebecca Levi and Ellen Schinderman. Fabric with the amazing Michelle Kingdom. And I got to talk to and see the stunning work of Emma Rose Laughlin, who (along with Michelle Kingdom) I've interviewed for my Inspired to Stitch column for Mr X Stitch.

Clockwise: work by Bascom Hogue, Mark Bieraugel, Katharine Lawrie and Spike Dennis.

I heard Annette Heully talk about her border-pushing lace work. And I got to see, close up, needlework of the highest quality, by Bascom Hogue, Mark Bieraugel, Spike Dennis, Meghan Willis, Julie Sarloutte, Jess de Wahls, Sally Hewett and Erika Hagberg, among so many others.

A meta moment. A viewer snapping a pic of my lips while I sneak a pic of her snapping it.

Making art is something that requires lots of time alone. I'm energized from the weekend connecting with these artists. Creatively, personally, artistically.

A highlight of the weekend: Meeting the lovely Brooklyn artist Rebecca Levi, in front of her gorgeous stitched men.

I have 10,000 ideas for new work, new projects, new columns, new making adventures. I'm so grateful to Ellen for creating that wonderful emotional space for us to all connect. And to my friends, Frank and Jody, for sharing the experience with me.

With the gang of fellow artists at The Waffle. Yay!

More art, more travel, more connection. Yes, please!

(Stitch Fetish 4 is on view at the Hive Gallery until Feb 27, 2014. The artwork is on sale in their online shop.)

Stitch Fetish 4, Los Angeles!

My Epic Lips are headed to LA for the Stitch Fetish 4 show at the Hive Gallery!

Opening Saturday, Feb 6th. Running until Feb 27th. If you're in LA, come check it out. I'll be there for the opening, so if you're there, say hello!